Parallel Lines
by Year of the dog
Summary: It doesn't matter how many times they try or how many lives it will take. FutureAUish


_I don't know why I decided to write this, but I think it's just because I've become adept at writing really depressing things. Or things that come out of left field. Yay for me I suppose. My inspiration for this fic came from a Japanese myth that states a couple who commits dual suicide will be reincarnated as twins. Though FeMC and Ryoji didn't really commit suicide I thought it kind of fit them. I also don't know how far into the future this is set, probably more than eighty or so years, but to make things easier let's just say that technology doesn't advance that quickly in this time._

**Disclaimer:** I do not in any way own the Persona series. I'd be doing more productive things with my increasingly dwindling amount of spare time if that were the case.

**Warning: **This contains mentions of incest, miscarriage, and suicide. If you are offended by any of these things than I suggest not reading this. By writing this I am also not saying that I am for or vehemently against incest. Neither am I saying that I support suicide. This means please refrain from nasty reviews about how horrible a person I am. Thank you.

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><p><strong>Parallel Lines<strong>

_It is said that star crossed lovers are reborn again as twins._

They are born twins. Two halves of one whole; two sides of one coin; two somethings that made everything. They grow up in the same room, with the same stuff, and the same needs. They grow up with the same wants.

When they turn three they hold hands for the first time, and from then on they are always locked together.

oOo

They don't look alike. They do in the structure of their faces and the color pallet that creates them and the way they tilt their head in that infuriatingly intelligent manner; but the look in their eyes is different, and the softness of her touch compared to his is considerably more. There should be no way to tell them apart, but there is no way to mistake them for each other.

They are never seen apart. Connected by the color of their eyes and the twine of their fingers. Relatives venture to ask them if they ever get bored of each other, and the two are tempted into smiling mysteriously and chortling that with all the chances it could have happened, boring was never a word they could use to describe the other. The family is forced to ignore it—for propriety's sake, and the fact that no six year old would ever be able to talk in such ways—and resume their belief that in a few years' time the two will begin to grow independent.

oOo

Their hair is a shade of yellow and their eyes are the color of glass. But when she looks at him she sees raven locks and eyes that remind her of the sea in summer. When he stares at her, his senses are overwhelmed with chestnut tresses and a fire-red gaze.

He does not comment on her unnatural love of bobby pins. When she eventually gets up the nerve to procure some, she fastens back her bangs and allows the pins to naturally fall into the shape of a twenty-two. He runs his fingers over them; mesmerized by their shape, their feel, how they look against the unnatural backdrop of her golden hair.

She never asks about his fascination with scarves. In the winter he dons different colored fabrics, wrapping them around his neck to the point where it's almost impossible to pull them back off. She occasionally tugs on the ends of them. Teasing and taunting and wordlessly commenting on how they don't match the color of his outfit. Sometimes she gets up the courage to ask and he allows her to take a scarf and wrap it around her own slender neck. She buries her face in the fabric and breathes in the scent of cinnamon, coffee, and lingering death.

Now ten, they are still forever twined together. When their parents suggest moving into separate rooms they refuse and rebelliously lock themselves behind their door until the adults consent. Instead, they are granted separate beds and their clothes are moved to different dressers. The second bed is never used.

oOo

At fourteen the times they hold hands are matched with the times that she latches onto his arm or he carries her piggy-back. Against their parents' wishes he refuses to meet with any potential girlfriends and she continues to parade around him in her underwear. When she is forcibly moved into a separate room, they take turns sneaking into the other's bed. There is still not a night that they have not slept together.

Different variations of different rumors circulate amongst their classmates. They're not rude, but they're distant. They're friendly, but it's like they're detached. There is not one person who can honestly say that they've been able to successfully hold either of their attention for an extended period of time. It is also commented on that even for twins the two of them are almost unnaturally close—but this is spoken about in whispers because it is against the rules of nature to question the actions of the prettiest girl and the sweetest boy.

There is one girl who eventually makes her way into their graces. A taller girl with clear blue eyes who speaks in a manner that is formal enough to make elders marvel. The blue-eyed girl never once questions the pair, and they allow her into their world as easily as if she had been there all along. For the first time in her fourteen years of living, she lets go of her brother's hand and settles her palms on the sides of the blue-eyed girl's face. The contact is brief and after a moment her fingers are back entwined with his, but the action speaks volumes.

oOo

When they greet their new neighbors they become acquainted with another pair of siblings. Those two are not twins, but the three years that separate them doesn't seem to make them any less closer. The older one is their age and gets excited at the mere mention of sports. He doesn't talk much, but there is an air about him that makes their female classmates swoon and begs one to want to be friends with him. The younger boy is small for his age and talks even less, but from his silences and well-mannered speech it is easy to gauge that he's much more reliable than his elder brother. Soon the twins begin to realize that he's glancing at her from behind his lashes, and every time one of them catches him, the small boy jumps and scarlets and averts his gaze. She finds it endearing; her brother bites back a possessive snarl behind smiling eyes and an arm laced around her shoulders just so.

The boys have another brother who's six year their elder and has already left for college. When he comes back home on break, the impossibly tall boy stops and stares at the two of them. He gives them no introduction and they give none in turn, but a few days into their acquaintance he comments to the both of them that they don't really look like they're siblings. They are taken aback, not only because he rarely speaks but because so far he's the only one to have said this to them. They don't mind though because they've thought the same thing often and he treats them exactly as he does his younger brothers; complete with homemade breakfast and occasional advice and mock-fights about stupid, irrelevant things.

Somewhere along the way the twins are introduced to the brothers' aunt. There is only a twelve year age difference, but the blonde-haired woman carries herself like an empress and bleeds propriety with every move she makes. Underneath the frigid no-nonsense that seems to make up the woman there is a sisterly warmth that reaches out towards her. She accepts it and giggles at the elder's warnings of lustful eyes and sticking with her studies. He coughs lightly and tries to discreetly move his hand from where it is not-so-innocently perched on his sister's thigh.

oOo

On their fifteenth birthday they kiss for the first time. It is taboo and it is wrong and it is wonderful. They keep it a secret from the world because no one else needs to know. She brushes her fingers against the spot under his eye where there's supposed to be a mole, and he runs his through tresses that should be a color far darker.

At night, they lay awake and wait for midnight to come. The date changes with nothing more than the tick of a clock's hand, but for some reason they find themselves uncomfortable until midnight comes and goes and brings nothing in its wake.

oOo

Whenever they go out to eat they end up at the only restaurant they know that sells ramen. (And in America, finding authentic ramen is much harder than one would think.) There is a boy there who is constantly wearing a baseball cap with an obnoxious letter emblazoned on the front. He is always accompanied by a little rose-haired girl who he claims is his cousin, but who looks sulky and offended and ashamed every time this is mentioned. They eventually stop visiting because there is something so familiar about this particular boy in this particular setting that it frightens them.

But when school resumes after a too-short summer, they come face-to-face with the boy they had been attempting to avoid. After explanations of transfers and that his rose-haired cousin is in the grade below, he smiles at them mischievously and makes a crack about how they all can't seem to get rid of each other.

oOo

They feel each other in every way possible. It's wrong, but with her hands down his pants and his up her shirt there's really no room to think about things that are not supposed to happen. She shudders and moans and his caresses become just a little bit rougher; anything to elicit that reaction again. He covers her body with love bites. Licking and nipping and branding her as his possession and his alone. Although people have noticed and once or twice she has been questioned, she never complains about the obvious placement of his marks. Instead, she rakes her nails down his back and moans into his hair and places her own brand just underneath his jaw.

They are seventeen and still madly in love. The brothers next door seem to know what's going on, but one is too shy and the next too oblivious to ask and the last one just knows too much and doesn't really care. They keep mum to the rest of the world, and speak not of what happens behind closed doors. No one else deserves to know anyway because no one else but their little group of friends understands.

oOo

Their senior year they are introduced to their new computer teacher. Fresh out of college and fresh on her own, the petite brown-haired woman is completely unprepared. She is timid and clueless on how to handle twenty-something teenagers at once. But she has a determination about her that dares one to try and drive her away, and she smiles like a little girl when they ask her in-depth questions about electronics.

They take an instant liking to her. On weekdays they hang back after class and offer to help her with any extra work she may have. The petite woman smiles in that sweet way of hers and tells them that she only wants their company. They still end up grading papers and teasing her about a love-life that she may or may not have. Somehow they eventually manage to weasel out her number, and soon become successful in harassing her into hanging out on the weekends with them. While she nervously talks about how inappropriate it is to be with students like this, the woman never really seems to object to their new arrangements.

At their graduation she gives them each a pair of handmade headphones and tells them that her door is always open.

oOo

There is screaming and curses and tears—so many, many tears. They stand in the living room, fingers twined together as always, and endure the barrage of insults and disbelief of their parents. They are wrong and they are disgusting and they are potentially delusional. Loving a sibling; loving a _twin! _This is a mar on the family that must be corrected and will never be spoken of again.

They are silent—and it's not fair it's never fair not back then and not now and _why can't it ever be fair?—_but the rebellion is blazing in their eyes. They hide away in their room and refuse to answer to the threats and the pleading on the other side of the door. Somewhere amongst the yelling and the fear that the door won't hold, one of them begins to whisper and the other quickly joins in their litany.

_Never again. Never again. Never again._

The next day they are still nineteen but they are gone and so are the contents of their closets.

oOo

At twenty they are now completely on their own. Their life is comprised of blue and yellow wallpaper and new appliances and if their furniture goes with the carpet. They get a new number and refuse to give it out to all but seven people—there is no need to keep in touch with false friends and nosy relatives, and their parents are still lecturing about independence and the indecency of it all.

Their next-door neighbor turns out to be a sassy girl with sharp eyes. The girl shuns him and gravitates to her, and when it is '_just us girls '_she loses her sharpness and gushes about cute things and boys. When neighbor-girl asks if she has anyone—and there is a not-so-subtle nod at the fact that girly already has one that she's not liable to let go of anytime soon, if the matching His/Her mugs on the countertop mean anything—she blushes and fidgets and mumbles shyly that she doesn't need anyone but the boy she's living with.

The girl looks a little alarmed and slightly put-off but allows the topic to drop. When she leaves to go back to her own apartment, she swears she hears the mutterings of curses against shameless Casanovas that always seem to get the girl.

oOo

They are regularly visited by the blue-eyed girl. The girl is still tall and still awkward and still looks at her as if she's something precious that needs protection. He isn't disliked, but it's obvious that he makes the girl wary, and every sudden move is met with taut muscles while every gesture of affection towards his sister elicits glaring eyes and nervous fidgeting. She accepts any and every favor and rewards their blue-eyed friend with hugs and warm assurances.

To keep the peace, they fail to mention that this girl reminds them of whirs and cogs and a shock of blonde hair to go with her eyes. And if they really pay close enough attention, they start to think that they might remind her of green skies and promises never and forever kept.

oOo

They are often asked how weird it felt to kiss someone with the same face. They don't know themselves, because when they kiss and touch and writhe in silent pleasure, he sees red eyes and she buries her fingers into raven locks.

When they make love, the names they call out start with different letters and end with different syllables, because their own names sound unnatural and forced on their lips. It doesn't hit home until she calls it out on the street one day and he responds in turn. They stare at each other in silence, and end up walking home with hands grasped tightly in anxiety and a tiny bit of relief.

oOo

She's not entirely sure how, but for some reason she ends up working for the blonde-haired aunt. The woman asks no questions about the twins' obvious estrangement from their family, and merely allows her the secretary job with barely an interview. She's grateful, especially for the fact that she's been hired with nothing but a high school diploma to prove her competency.

During work, the aunt springs something on her. The woman doesn't look up, but she can tell that she's paying attention more to her than to the stacks of papers her manicured nails flip through. There is talk about how sometimes these things happen, and there's really no way you can ever stop something like this. Nor is there a way to fix it once it has happened. The woman then goes on to explain that she once had a friend who fell in love with a person she wasn't allowed to have.

The woman goes silent and her fingers stop so suddenly it scares her. Their eyes lock, and the shock and confusion are so evident on the aunt's face that she can't think of anything to say. They are silent for a few more moments before the woman resumes her composure and tells her that they are done for the day.

oOo

They are twenty four and she is pregnant. They are twenty four and he is excited and nervous and utterly sick.

There are visits to doctors and rearrangements of diets—and changing of names because society already thinks them disgusting. He treats her like glass, and while she thinks it's sweet, she wishes he wouldn't be so careful around her. They talk of baby names; of whether or not it will be a girl or a boy. They clean out a room and discuss changing blue/yellow wallpaper for something more fitting. She has never looked so happy. He has never felt so warm.

Then there is pain and bleeding all over the carpet and the folds of her dress. Amongst the panic and screaming and the doctors telling them to _'calm down and keep still and just __**breathe!**_' something in her stills and breaks.

And then they are twenty four and their child is nothing more than an unheard wish.

oOo

He runs into the capped boy, and it's as if they never parted ways. They end up sitting down for drinks—both now legal, both still painfully young—and talk about whatever comes to mind.

The capped boy laughs and teases and eventually makes a crack about his sister. He bristles and rushes to defend, but it has become unnecessary. The boy's expression is caught between laughing and cringing. He settles back down and prepares himself for what he thinks is coming.

The boy mentions how ironic it is that his best friends ended up together. It wasn't unexpected, just ironic. There is also mention of how strange it was that he never thought of them being with anyone else. He tries to smile and inform the boy that honestly, they had never really thought about it, but it dies on his throat when the capped boy (_who wanted to be a baseball player_ he can't help but occasionally think) looks back up at him with resignation that terrifies.

The boy warns him that if he ever hurts her again, he'll come for him. He isn't sure what to think of this, especially when the boy goes on to tell him that he keeps seeing the memory of his sister with her head in her hands and an expression so broken it hurt. It brings tears to his own eyes because he thinks he saw that expression once, and if he pieces his faulty memories together, he's almost certain he really was the cause of it.

When they part ways, the boy turns back around and after apologizing for their loss, comments that they can't ever seem to catch a break.

oOo

Their hair is a shade of yellow and their eyes are the color of glass; a color clear and fake and altogether empty. They think it's fitting how their color pallet is as paper-thin and translucent as the masks that they are forced to wear. Masks in the form of new names and new backdrops and seemingly new acquaintances. And it is both hilarious and terrible that they're never allowed to get what they truly want.

oOo

Their fingers are still twined—forever and ever and ever twined. There is a gun in her free hand and a tarot card in his; soulless, empty eyes of the reaper's scythe laughing back at them. Their lips curl in self-derision. (Or perhaps it's merely mockery. _The devil does have the last laugh after all_.) She brings the gun up closer, the barrel oscillating between him and her and him and her again. The cold steel is so familiar, so _welcoming_. But this isn't playtime anymore and the differences between then and now are that this one is _real_ and instead of pretty, sparkling gods and promises of protection and whispers of sweet nothings and nothings and everythings, pulling this trigger results only in the color of disgust draped against the blue and yellow of well-kept wallpaper.

His smile quirks ever-so-slightly, and in the silence his whisper is echoing.

'_We never seem to get this right.'_

She smiles back and unlike his, hers is bright and gentle and hopeful. '_Next time,'_ she whispers. Her fingers unlace from his and for the last time she brushes her digits against the expanse of his cheek that should be decorated with a small mole.

'_We have forever to try.'_

They end at twenty-six, with the sounds of gunshots and the red painting of life against the backdrop of their furniture.


End file.
